


always crush me

by drglass (fluorescentgrey)



Category: Blur, Music RPF
Genre: Depression, Dialogue-Only, Experimental Style, M/M, Suicidal Thoughts, not that shippy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-06
Updated: 2017-05-06
Packaged: 2018-10-28 13:59:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,176
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10832712
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fluorescentgrey/pseuds/drglass
Summary: conversation on a sixth-story ledge, 1995





	always crush me

“Lovely night.” 

“Oh, fuck off.” 

“I always liked looking at the city from — ”

“I’m fucking serious. Fuck off.” 

“No.” 

“What do you — ”

“Why would I. I’d rather be up here with you.” 

“You’d rather be — ” 

“Yes, of course. Are you going to get down?” 

“Fuck off. How did you even find me?” 

“I had an evil sort of feeling. But are you going to — ” 

“ _No_ , I said, fuck — I’m not. Not getting down.” 

“Alright.” 

“What are you doing?” 

“I said it’s a lovely night. I can’t sit with you?” 

“Christ Jesus. You had better be careful.” 

“You’re funny. It’s a hell of a long way down isn’t it.” 

“Yeah. I’ve been looking.” 

“Your heart would stop before you hit the ground probably. A bit existential to think about.” 

“I suppose.” 

“Tabloids would go bloody nuts. Every staff writer at the NME would spontaneously orgasm.” 

“You’re so bloody vulgar.” 

“You laughed. I saw you. I thought you hated, what did you call it. My bullshit popstar performativity.” 

“It’s different.” 

“How is it different.” 

“This is from — don’t fucking laugh.” 

“You were going to say, from my soul.” 

“Oh, fuck off.” 

“Wasn’t I right?” 

“I have been — if you must know. Perhaps it would be best to just do it at home quietly with pills.” 

“Don’t say those things to me because I’ll never leave you alone.” 

“Of course you will. You have before.” 

“Every sixth story ledge you’ve been on before was figurative.” 

“This is too big a bloody statement anyway. This is very you, actually, I’ve been thinking. Fabricate a fucking chart battle with singles which no one buys anymore anyway. Big posh party at a posh club with posh models. Punctuated by a very loud and gory suicide. Symphony of blood and car alarms and women screaming.” 

“That’s what I’m saying. It’s very performative. It isn’t like you. I suppose it is like me. How about you sit down?” 

“Why in hell would I sit down.” 

“So you don’t fall.” 

“So I don’t — ”

“Yes. It is a lovely night and if you just sit — it could just be a lovely night. We don’t have to go back to the party again. We can take the back stairs and go out through the basement.” 

“I thought this was your element.” 

“Well I guess you thought wrong. I hate this shite as much as you do probably.” 

“There is simply no way in hell you hate it as much as I do.” 

“Try me.” 

“Well this record kind of makes me wish I were dead.” 

“It isn’t _that_ bad.” 

“Not objectively I suppose. But to me it is. It feels like Groundhog Day. I dunno.” 

“Like the same thing over and over again?” 

“Yeah, like that.” 

“You should’ve said something to me about it.” 

“Yeah. It doesn’t matter now.” 

“It does matter. We’ll do something different. If you could stand to make another record with me.” 

“Jesus. Another.” 

“We’re on the hook for two more. But you don’t have to look at me like I’ve run over your puppy.” 

“I can’t do it like this for another two more.” 

“Well I know that now. You should’ve said something.” 

“I’ve been trying.” 

“Not very hard.” 

“Not as hard as you’ve been trying.” 

“Trying what.” 

“I don’t know. What have you been trying?” 

“For us to be other than a one hit wonder. To make good songs. To make a living.” 

“To make records that sell.” 

“Unfortunately that’s what’s necessary to make a living.” 

“Jesus. I hate it to hear you talk like that.” 

“One of us has to be devoted to this — playing this game. For the common good.” 

“You act like you don’t have feelings. It has to disturb you.” 

“Yes well, sometimes I think I’ve assassinated my conscience. It used to disturb me quite a bit more.” 

“Well what changed.” 

“I don’t — that’s a good question.” 

“I’ve been trying to figure it out. More trying I suppose.” 

“Well what do you think it is?” 

“You like being looked at. You always have. You’re tremendously damaged. You crave the sensation of being wanted however shallow it might be. Really it explains everything.” 

“I feel for you, I do, that you hurt so badly you can’t tell anybody else is hurting. It’s quite sad.” 

“It is. Quite. I am sitting out here after all.” 

“At least you’re sitting.” 

“Well yes. So I don’t fall. Don’t — you’re so smug when you’re right.” 

“I don’t mean to be.” 

“Of course you mean to be right.” 

“I don’t mean to be smug.” 

“Fuck off. You’re the smuggest person — Christ. Do you remember when we first — ” 

“Of course. How could I not — ”

“ — when we first _met_ , I was going to say.” 

“That’s what I meant.” 

“You looked bloody lecherous. Anyway you were quite smug. You’ve always been smug.” 

“You’re not without your… idiosyncrasies of ego, love.” 

“Jesus. Who isn’t?” 

“It’s your drinking. You have the strangest ideas of how you should behave.” 

“Wise words from an amateur psychoanalyst.” 

“I _am_ the world’s foremost expert in how your brain works.” 

“Unfortunately.” 

“Yes. It is rather unfortunate, isn’t it.” 

“It’s all rather bloody unfortunate. It’s unfortunate head to toe.” 

“It doesn’t have to be — it wasn’t always.” 

“You remember all that through rose-colored glasses now. It was unfortunate in its own way.” 

“I suppose so.” 

“What it really was, was, you’re socialized with such a limited understanding of the machinery by which you can love someone.” 

“More wise words from another amateur psychoanalyst.” 

“Really I’m being quite serious. I can only speak for how it — well. How it felt for me. Which was that it was very trying to be parted from you.” 

“It still is — ”

“ — yes. It still is. Unfortunately. But it’s different now. Not for better nor for worse I think. Because it could hardly have been how it was. But I suppose it can hardly be like this either.” 

“I just realized how drunk you are.” 

“Jesus — _fuck_ off.” 

“You only get so nostalgic when you’re drunk. You’ll go to every length not to talk about it unless you’re absolutely legless.” 

“Yes, well. The past doesn’t exist anymore but it impinges.” 

“Is that from a poem?” 

“No. A fact.” 

“Dismal.” 

“Most facts are.” 

“Like the fact, your heart would stop before you hit the ground. Have you ever seen that famous portrait of that girl who jumped from the Empire State Building? And her face is so peaceful but the force, like the gravity of her landing, she’s lying in this crunched-in car, like black velvet.” 

“I have seen that photograph.” 

“It’s such a bloody lie. It was lucky for the photographer she landed how she did. Can you imagine how destroyed everything must have been — ”

“Jesus. Don’t talk about it.”

“You’re the one who wanted to do it. You should just know. I don’t think you would look so beautiful. Think of everyone who loves you seeing you — ”

“Everyone who loves me.” 

“Yes — of course.” 

“Who loves me at this bloody party.” 

“Besides me?” 

“So you do count yourself in that auspicious cohort.” 

“Jesus. Did I not just say — but regardless. Me. And Dave and Alex love you. Justine does love you though she’s quite jealous. And everybody else here loves the money you make for them so much you can probably parlay it into some semblance of actual love.” 

“That last bit is blatantly untrue and you bloody know it. They’d be bloody gleeful if I offed myself as probably the record would sell like hotcakes.” 

“But it would be sullied with the legacy forever. Like _In Utero_.” 

“It needs some horrible legacy to sully it or else it’s nothing.” 

“I thought you were happy with it.” 

“I’m as happy as I can be with it.” 

“Your playing on it is really lovely.” 

“It doesn’t feel wasted?” 

“Jesus — no. Do you really think it’s that bad?” 

“Like I said. Not objectively.” 

“But subjectively.” 

“Yes. Subjectively. Though everything seems bad subjectively I suppose at the present moment.” 

“That’s the function of — what is it? Depression?” 

“I don’t know.” 

“Alcoholism then.” 

“Probably a little of both. And the horrific loneliness.” 

“What happened to that girl?” 

“What girl?” 

“The girl with — nevermind.” 

“Oh — her. Yes, nothing really. But this isn’t — you know there’s a kind of loneliness you can cure with sex. Or with just talking with your friends. And then there’s another kind, and this is the other kind. So logically I know — I know it’s a bloody idiot feeling… I should, I should be able to have everything I want and be happy. But I don’t and I’m not. Hence the ledge, at least in part.” 

“Were you so lonely when — ”

“No. But everything was different then. So I can’t say how it started.” 

“Do you know what might — if anything would help?” 

“I think — this is stupid. But being known.” 

“In the Shakespearean — ”

“Christ. You asshole.” 

“You laughed, I saw you.” 

“I mean — like being understood by the entire soul.” 

“I understand your entire soul.”

“You think you do. Besides that’s different. I don’t know yours anymore. And it couldn’t be — it couldn’t be complete. We just agreed.” 

“Well what about Alex?” 

“Christ, you jealous fuck. You hated saying that. And he hasn’t tried since university.” 

“Just as well. He doesn’t treat his lovers very nicely.” 

“Ah. But I don’t like being treated very nicely.” 

“Right. I should’ve remembered.” 

“Yeah. You were quite cruel at times. But it was alright.” 

“So were you. Quite cruel I mean.” 

“I still am. I worry.” 

“It would’ve been the cruelest thing you ever would’ve done to me in your life. If you’d — ”

“ — fallen.” 

“I was going to say, jumped. But yes. Fallen. Like a medieval hero. Victorious upon the battlefield.” 

“The blood-slaked battlefield of Britpop. The killing fields of Cool Britannia.” 

“It’s not that bad.” 

“It is. You don’t see because you’re having fun now getting higher and higher up the ladder. And so it’ll be a very long fall when they don’t want you anymore. And a very hard landing.” 

“What do you suggest I do.” 

“Something you want. From your bloody soul. For the love of God. Something real.” 

“I am trying.” 

“More trying.” 

“It’s hard to think — you won’t like this. How to satisfy the label, and myself, and all you three. But especially you.” 

“Just leave the vultures out of the whole equation. Haven’t we sold enough records — ”

“We’ll never sell enough records to fill the whole of their greed.” 

“If we never will then what’s the point of trying. Perhaps the better way to play the game as you say is to deliberately play it backward. Backward like occult recitations on a Zeppelin record.” 

“We’ll lose all our fans and never make any money again and the label will sue us like they said they would the last time.” 

“Young kids in America love terrifying music. They love Nirvana, and — ” 

“So you want to make something terrifying.” 

“Anything from your bloody soul is terrifying.” 

“Me specifically or — ”

“Yes, you specifically. But also generally I think. Probably anything from most people’s souls is terrifying. If they sue us we can afford a countersuit now. And if we never make any money again we can sell all our nice things.” 

“You’d rather that — ”

“I’d rather anything quite frankly.” 

“Alright.” 

“Really?” 

“Yeah, alright. Let’s try it.” 

“Don’t — you have to really mean it. You can’t lie to me.” 

“I wouldn’t. Not ever. Don’t you know me anymore?” 

“I’m trying.” 

“More trying.” 

“I have to really know you. And you have to really know me.” 

“You have to let me.” 

“I’m — I will.” 

“Will you?” 

“Yes — yes. I will.” 

“Really?” 

“Yes, really yes.” 

“Because you can’t — ”

“I won’t.” 

“Won’t what?” 

“Lie to you. Is that what you meant?” 

“Not really. But — no, it’s fine. It’s enough. Thank you. What’s that sound?” 

“From inside? It’s Guided by Voices. Game of Pricks.” 

“Lovely song.” 

“Yeah. It’s like a comedown kind of hungover song. It’s lovely and terribly sad. It’s a little haunting isn’t it. Or haunted rather I suppose.” 

“I suppose. Do you want to go home? We can go out through the basement and hail a cab some blocks over.” 

“We can stay and listen to the end.” 

“At least — Jesus. Will you come inside?” 

“Oh — yeah of course — ”

“Hold on — let me help you — ”

“I don’t bloody need — ”

“Jesus fuck. You’ll fall and I’ll fucking die. After all that.” 

“You don’t have to be so loud. I won’t bloody fall. See?” 

“Yeah. Jesus.” 

“Alright?” 

“It just kind of — hit me, yeah.” 

“What did?” 

“That you — Christ. Bloody hell.” 

“You played it really quite cool.” 

“Adrenaline I suppose. Come here.” 

“What?” 

“I said come here and let me — you’re like a skittish bloody lamb. I was going to say, let me hold you.” 

“It feels — to have my feet on the ground.” 

“Yes, because you’re drunk. Your heart’s — Jesus.” 

“What about it?” 

“I can feel it racing.” 

“Well I can feel yours.” 

“It’s just your own echoing.” 

“No. I know it’s yours.” 

**Author's Note:**

> titled after the tune by [guided by voices.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPKTvU62HZA) i kind of figured [game of pricks](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IlZlst4NBVw) was too obvious. 
> 
> i'm [here on tumblr](http://yeats-infection.tumblr.com/).


End file.
